http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/103628 Volume 2018 2026-04-05T09:32:14Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/104492 Gutturals in phonetic terms Hedánek, Jiří “Guttural” is a vaguely or variably defined term in the phonology of ancient Semitic languages, especially Tiberian Hebrew. It can include laryngeals, pharyngeals, epiglottals, uvulars, and sometimes postvelars; pharyngealized emphatics should be covered too, though they are not; and often, inexplicably, all rhotics are included, even though only uvular ones should be eligible. In general, “guttural” seems to be a purely phonology-based concept, out of step with phonetic considerations. Sounds of speech, however, are more than abstract nodes in charts; they have material substance, which both affects and is affected by neighboring sounds. Over time, a secondary manifestation can assume the phonological position of a sound, gradually making the sound itself redundant and prone to disappearance. This may well have been the origin of the disputed Semitic *ġ, provided that a secondary articulation, velarization or possibly pharygealization, took over and became a full-fledged [ɣ]. If teachers employ the inherited term “gutturals”, they sometimes tend to present them as imposing [a]-vowels wherever possible. This is a phonetically unsubstantiated claim, as laryngeals impose no vocalic colour; uvulars and postvelars would enhance [o] and [u], if anything at all; epiglottals may front the back vowels (i.e. towards [e]) and lower only the front vowels; the inherent [ɑ]-colour of pharyngeals seems to lag behind rather than anticipate (which might be language-specific); and pharyngealized consonants, excluded from gutturals in any case, are observed to move vowels back rather than down. Articulations “behind the tongue”, so crucial for Semitic phonologies, present numerous complexities: difficult to observe, frequently substituting for one another, and involving issues of terminology as well as interpretation of scripts. Here too, modern phonetic studies can furnish acoustic and physiological data to support hypotheses about languages of the ancient world. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/104491 Comparative perspectives on bee law in Indo-European Joseph, Brian D. An illuminating comparison can be made between Early Irish bee law, as reflected in the Bechbretha, and the bee section of the archaic Albanian law code, Chapter 53 of the Kanun of Lek Dukagjin, with reference as well to the relatively brief mention given to bees in the Hittite Laws. Of particular interest are some features of the legal treatment of bees pertaining, e.g., to the role of tracking or pursuing bee swarms and to the issue of ownership in cases of stray swarms, since they show some specific parallels as to content. Still, one must keep in mind that the parallels could reflect independent development based on the nature of the matter at hand; therefore, by way of adjudicating this question, a case involving bees from US law is considered. Ultimately, it is hard to make a definitive case for the bee-law parallels, there is evidence suggestive of Proto-Indo-European practices regarding bees and the law. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/104490 Yaghnobi: an example of a language in contact Novák, Ľubomír Yaghnobi, an Eastern Iranian language spoken in northern Tajikistan, shares many important features with Sogdian and is generally believed to be descended from a nonliterary dialect of Sogdian. The language has historically been in intensive contact with Tajik and more recently with Russian; in addition, some features connecting Yaghnobi with the Pamir language area may be identified. Contact with Tajik has introduced thousands of lexical items, many of which have become an integral part of the Yaghnobi lexicon. There are also examples of Tajik grammatical loans: some of these features, such as the izafet construction or past participles in -gí, have become part of the Yaghnobi grammatical system, while other features, such as the direct object marker -ro or verbal imperfective prefix me-, are usually used in Tajik-dominated mixed speech communities. The intensity of language contact nowadays differs in the various areas inhabited by the Yaghnobis; the present article is based on material recorded in the Yaghnobi-speaking community in the Lower Varzob area, north of the Tajik capital Dushanbe. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/104489 “Place in my hands the inexhaustible craft of medicine!” Physicians and healing at the royal court of Esarhaddon Šašková, Kateřina The medicine of ancient Mesopotamia has long been the topic of investigation, but the texts explored within this field are mainly “handbooks” for persons practising medicine and lists of diseases. This medical literature, however, comprises theoretical information rather than data on actual medical practices. Therefore, the Neo-Assyrian letters and divinatory queries (especially from the reign of the king Esarhaddon) that provide a more colourful picture of diseases of concrete individuals and their healing by specific physicians are a priceless source for our knowledge of “real” Mesopotamian medicine, despite the fact that this picture is limited only to a small group of persons standing closest to the king (mostly members of the royal family) in the role of patients, with the highest-ranking specialists as their healers. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z